The Penguin's Background (And Appearance)

The 2014 television series Gotham is set in the city's past when Bruce Wayne is just a kid. Although Bruce is a main character, most of the show is about James Gordon's attempts to clean up the city. This means there are plenty of criminal characters, including a young Oswald Cobblepot - not yet The Penguin - who first starts off as a lackey for a show-original mob character before moving to work for the more familiar Carmine Falcone.

The current Batman storyline, "War of Jokes and Riddles", is set primarily in the past, so it's fitting that in Batman #26 (July 2017), we see a young Oswald Cobblepot performing a similar role. Although instead of working for Falcone, both he and Falcone work for the Joker. (For the record, I think this is a dumb development, but whatever.)

As a bonus, you may notice that he doesn't look much like Robin Lord Taylor, but he DOES look pretty close to Danny DeVito's portrayal in Batman Returns (1992) - mainly the long, curly hair.

Tim Burton's Batman movies seem to be having more and more of an effect on Batman comics lately. Is it just the right age, where people who grew up with it are entering the industry now (cf. Geoff Johns and Superman: The Movie)? I don't know, but it happened with Catwoman's new origin, and we'll see another example of it next week!